In NY Post op-ed, Linda Chavez attacked Clintons with falsehoods about charity

In a March 1 op-ed published in the New York Post, syndicated columnist Linda Chavez, President Bush's former nominee for labor secretary, falsely claimed that, according to a Washington Post article, “despite Senate ethics rules requiring her to do so, [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] failed to disclose the amount of money she and Bill had sheltered from taxes through a family charity they set up when they left the White House.” Later in the column, Chavez referred to “revelations about her [Clinton's] failure to report the tax shelter.”

In fact, as the February 27 Washington Post article she cited and a subsequent New York Times article reported, while Clinton failed to list her role as treasurer and secretary of the Clinton Family Foundation on Senate financial disclosure forms, financial information about the Clintons' foundation has long been available to the public through the Internal Revenue Service. According to the Times, “Details about the foundation have been on an Internal Revenue Service Web site for years.” And according to the Post, “The foundation's tax filings are available on an Internet repository for IRS documents.” The Times reported that, according to Clinton aides, the omission of Clinton's role in the charity from her annual Senate financial disclosure reports “was a clerical error and that it was corrected immediately.”

Moreover, Chavez referred twice to the Clinton Family Foundation as a tax shelter without explaining the purported financial benefit to the Clintons. Media Matters for America noted a similar omission in the Washington Post article. While reporters John Solomon and Matthew Mosk quoted a retired IRS official saying that wealthy people can reap tax benefits by putting money in a family foundation rather than having it passed on as part of the donor's estate, they did not explain the purported financial benefit to the Clintons of putting money in their foundation rather than keeping (or spending) it.

As Media Matters noted, the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, in a February 27 posting headlined “Secret Clinton Foundation Exposed” on its Corruption Chronicles weblog, cited the same Post article for the similar false claim that “Hillary Clinton has for years operated a secret foundation.”

Additionally, Chavez recycled a misleading attack on the Clintons about Whitewater. She noted that "[u]ntil Bill and Hillary left the White House in January 2001, they were hardly what you'd call rich" and then claimed that “friends' and political allies' efforts to enhance their financial status” “ended badly in investigations into land deals and mysterious commodities windfalls.” In fact, James McDougal, one of the Clintons' business partners in the decades-old real estate deal, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges related to the business investment, and the Clintons lost money in the real estate deal. The extensive, multimillion-dollar investigation into Whitewater turned up no evidence of illegality by the Clintons. Indeed, the independent counsel assigned to investigate the matter, Robert Ray, announced on September 20, 2000, that he had closed the probe after concluding that “the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct.”

From Chavez's March 1 op-ed in the New York Post:

THE Clintons have always behaved like the rules that governed everyone else didn't apply to them. And they've largely gotten away with it -- but perhaps Hillary Clinton's quest for the White House will finally bring this to an end. Two stories in recent days suggest the mainstream media are uncomfortable with ignoring the Clintons' hypocrisy, especially when it comes to money.

Until Bill and Hillary left the White House in January 2001, they were hardly what you'd call rich. They had never owned a home. Their friends' and political allies' efforts to enhance their financial status when the two occupied the Arkansas governor's mansion had ended badly in investigations into land deals and mysterious commodities windfalls.

These investigations, along with those into Bill's infamous peccadilloes and the Republicans' impeachment efforts, left the Clintons with huge legal bills. But they quickly made up for it by amassing a small fortune over the next six years. And that has provoked some concern among the media.

Over the last several days, The Washington Post has put two stories on its front page that reflect this uneasiness. The first focused on Bill Clinton's lucrative speaking engagements, which garnered nearly $40 million since 2001. The second story revealed that, despite Senate ethics rules requiring her to do so, Hillary Clinton failed to disclose the amount of money she and Bill had sheltered from taxes through a family charity they set up when they left the White House.

The Post did important investigative reporting on both these stories, which should quell some conservatives' fears that the mainstream media is somehow in cahoots with the Clintons in their efforts to move back to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The revelations about her failure to report the tax shelter caused Sen. Clinton some embarrassment at a time when her presidential campaign surely didn't need that kind of attention. More importantly, the story about Bill's speaking engagements hinted at some unsavory links between the former president's hefty fees and his wife's own presidential aspirations.